Please HELP! Suggestions for 1st build are needed and appreciated!

[Guest]

This is what I have so far (can't return so please work with me):

Antec 900
PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750W
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1000

This is what I am thinking of purchasing:

10007757 GIGABYTE GA-EP35C-DS3R Intel P35 Core 2 Quad Socket 775 1600 MHz PC3-10600 (DDR3-1333) ATX Motherboard Retail 1 $139.99 $114.00 after rebate
10008812 WESTERN DIGITAL WD3000GLFS VelociRaptor 300GB SATA II 10,000 RPM 16MB Buffer Hard Drive Bulk 1 $298.99
10008918 VISIONTEC 900244 Radeon HD 4870 512MB GDDR5 PCI Express x16 (2.0v) Video Card Retail 1 $299.00
80864 Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Quad-Core Processor 2.4GHz, 1066FSB, LGA775, 8MB cache Retail ***Free Shipping*** 1 $208.50

I'm going to use this build for 3d rendering and gaming. I've never built a computer before, so any help will be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[omicron_15]

I would suggest a x38, x48 or p45 chipset board instead of the old p35, if you never plan on going CF with your 4870 then the p45 should be enough for you with 1x pcie2.0 16x slot, but if you are thinking of going CF down the road the x38 and x48 will be able to provide you with 2 pcie2.0 slots going at 16x.

The p35 does not support pcie2.0 and so is in effect only equivalent to a pcie2.0 8x slot, I have seen benches were you might loos 10-15% at high resolutions 1900+.

I like Gigabyte and have had good experience will all my Gigabyte mobo builds.

The rest of your build looks good.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the info and suggestion. I'm now considering the GIGABYTE GA-X48-DS4 LGA 775.